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22,519 markers found

Battle of Lindley's Mill

Alamance County, NC

On September 13, 1781, Whig militia under John Butler clashed with Loyalist forces led by Colonel David Fanning at Lindley's Mill, four miles southwest of here. Butler's men were trying to rescue Governor Thomas Burke, whom Fanning had captured the day before, but they failed and the governor remained a prisoner. It was one of the largest and bloodiest militia battles of the Revolution in North Carolina.

Battle of London

London, KY

On August 17, 1862, Confederate Colonel John S. Scott led 500 cavalry against roughly 200 Union soldiers and 98 convalescents under Colonel L. C. Houk at London. The lopsided fight cost the Union thirteen killed, seventeen wounded, and over a hundred captured along with forty wagons, while Scott lost only a handful of men. Driven back to George W. Morgan's main force at Cumberland Gap, Houk's defeat helped sever Union supply lines and set the stage for Morgan's long retreat to Ohio.

Battle of Lone Jack

Lone Jack, MO

On the morning of August 16, 1862, the war between the states erupted across this Missouri crossroads village when a Confederate force overwhelmed a smaller detachment of Union cavalry. The Battle of Lone Jack was one of the vicious, close-quarters fights that made the Missouri-Kansas border among the most bitterly divided theaters of the Civil War, where neighbors and guerrillas turned on one another. The engagement left dozens dead in the streets and fields around the town.

Battle of Medina

Leming, TX

In August 1813, amid the upheaval of Spain's collapsing empire, the Republican Army of the North—American volunteers, Tejanos, Mexicans, and Native Americans who had seized San Antonio in the name of an independent Texas—marched south and was ambushed near the Medina River. Spanish General Joaquín de Arredondo crushed them in the bloodiest battle ever fought on Texas soil; fewer than 100 of some 1,400 escaped, and most captives were executed. Among Arredondo's officers was a young Antonio López de Santa Anna, who would return decades later.

Battle of Minisink

Lackawaxen Township, PA · est. 1948

On July 22, 1779, the Revolutionary War reached this stretch of the upper Delaware. Some 175 patriot militia attacked a force of roughly 300 Loyalists and allied Native fighters led by the Mohawk chief Joseph Brant, who was returning from raids on the New York frontier. The battle turned into a disaster for the settlers, most of whom were killed, while Brant slipped away.

Battle of Mount Sterling

Mount Sterling, KY

On March 22, 1863, some 300 Confederate cavalrymen under Colonel R. S. Cluke swept into Mount Sterling and captured the town, taking 438 prisoners along with wagonloads of military stores, hundreds of mules, and a thousand stand of arms. The raid cost each side only a handful of casualties but stripped the Union garrison of its supplies. It was one of the many mounted strikes that made Civil War Kentucky a running contest of cavalry.

Battle of Nacogdoches

Nacogdoches, TX

On August 2, 1832, in one of the opening clashes leading toward Texas independence, Nacogdoches settlers resisted Mexican commander Col. José de las Piedras after he ordered them to surrender their firearms. Forming a "National Militia" under James W. Bullock, the townspeople fought house-to-house, seized the stone fort, and drove Piedras's roughly 300 troops from the square. The Mexicans fled in the night, were captured the next day, and a peace treaty followed on August 6—after which Mexican troops were never again garrisoned in East Texas.

Battle of North Fork of Red River

Lefors, TX

On September 29, 1872, Colonel Ranald MacKenzie's cavalry and infantry surprised a 262-tepee Comanche village here on the North Fork of the Red River, whose people had refused to be confined to reservations. The troops seized the village in about half an hour, though Chief Mow-Way's warriors fought fiercely from the creek banks — and that night the Comanches slipped back and recaptured their horse herd. The lesson MacKenzie drew shaped his decisive 1874 campaign against the Southern Plains tribes.

Battle of Palmito Ranch

Brownsville, TX

On May 12–13, 1865 — more than a month after Lee's surrender at Appomattox — Union and Confederate forces clashed near this spot in the last land engagement of the Civil War. Federal troops advancing from Brazos Island toward Fort Brown were checked by Confederate cavalry under Col. John S. "Rip" Ford until his artillery and a flanking charge forced a Union retreat. In a strange coda to a war already lost, the Confederates carried the field, reporting no fatalities while Union losses ran to more than a hundred.

Battle of Picacho Pass Memorial

Pinal County, AZ

This memorial marks the Battle of Picacho Pass, fought April 15, 1862, near a jagged peak in the Arizona desert. A small clash between Union cavalry from California and a Confederate patrol from Texas, it is often called the westernmost battle of the Civil War. Though tiny in scale, it signaled how far the war's reach extended into the Southwest.

Battle of Pickawillany, 1752

Piqua, OH

In the Ohio Country of the early 1750s, the Miami village of Pickawillany grew into a thriving hub of the deerskin trade, where the leader Memeskia welcomed British traders and drew nearby tribes away from their older French alliances. That defiance made the town a target: in the summer of 1752 a French-allied war party swept down from the Great Lakes, destroyed the village, and killed Memeskia, breaking Britain's foothold in the region. The raid is often remembered as one of the sparks that would ignite the French and Indian War.

Battle of Pickett's Mill

Paulding County, GA

On May 27, 1864, following the fighting at New Hope Church, Union Maj. Gen. O.O. Howard pushed over 18,000 men toward the Confederate right, hoping to find and turn its flank. Instead, three Federal brigades blundered into a deep, wooded ravine and were cut down one after another by Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne's Confederates firing from three directions, handing the South a clear victory in a five-hour battle.

Battle of Pickett's Mill

Paulding County, GA

After the defense at New Hope Church in late May 1864, Confederate Gen. Johnston extended his right to counter Sherman's flanking moves. At Pickett's Mill, more than 18,000 Union troops under Maj. Gen. O.O. Howard sought the Confederate flank, but their brigades were funneled into a deep ravine and defeated in detail by Patrick Cleburne's men, who held the field after a fierce five-hour fight.

Battle of Plum Creek

Lockhart, TX

By 1840 the young Republic of Texas and the Comanche and Kiowa nations were locked in escalating violence, inflamed by President Lamar's aggressive policies and the deadly Council House Fight in San Antonio. In revenge, a large war party swept to the coast and sacked Linnville before turning inland laden with plunder. On August 12, 1840, Texan volunteers under Felix Huston, Edward Burleson, and Mathew Caldwell—joined by Tonkawa allies—intercepted them at Plum Creek in a running fight across the prairie.

Battle of Resaca

Gordon County, GA

On May 13, 1864, Union Gen. McPherson's corps emerged from Snake Creek Gap to open the Battle of Resaca, with Judson Kilpatrick's cavalry leading the advance until he was wounded by Confederate skirmishers. Over the next day Federal forces deployed along ridges overlooking Camp Creek as the battle opened in earnest against Hood's and Hardee's lines.

Battle of Resaca

Resaca, GA

On May 16, 1864, Gen. Johnston's Confederate army slipped across the Oostanaula River on pontoon and railroad bridges, ending the Battle of Resaca. Union forces rebuilt the burned bridges and pursued southward while other columns fanned out toward Rome and the Coosawattee crossings, and the Army of the Tennessee forded the river downstream at Lay's Ferry.

Battle of Resaca

Gordon County, GA

During the Battle of Resaca on May 13–14, 1864, Union corps deployed along ridges west of Camp Creek opposite Leonidas Polk's Confederate corps. On May 14 the Federals drove Polk's men across the creek and, by evening, carried and held his new position on the hills beyond, forcing Polk to fall back toward the Dalton–Resaca road.

Battle of Ruff's Mill

Mableton, GA

On July 4, 1864, Union Brig. Gen. John Fuller's brigade probed east from Nickajack Creek to test the strength of the Confederate position near Ruff's Mill. Finding it strongly held, Fuller returned, then advanced again with support and after a bitter struggle seized the first line of Confederate works. The action, paired with fighting at Smyrna, was part of pressuring Johnston's retreat from Kennesaw toward the Chattahoochee.

Battle of San Jacinto

Houston, TX

On the afternoon of April 21, 1836, Sam Houston's roughly one thousand Texans stormed Santa Anna's larger Mexican army in a charge that lasted only eighteen minutes yet decided a continent's future. Crying "Remember the Alamo!" and "Remember Goliad!" as their band played a love song, the Texans routed the enemy, capturing Santa Anna himself the next day. The stunning victory secured Texas independence and, with annexation nine years later, set in motion the U.S. acquisition of vast western lands.

Battle of San Patricio

San Patricio, TX

In the predawn hours of February 27, 1836, during the Texas Revolution, Mexican General José Urrea's troops surprised a Texan force in the streets of Old San Patricio. The Texans, remnants of an ill-fated expedition against Matamoros led by Francis W. Johnson and Dr. James Grant, were scattered — sixteen killed and thirty taken prisoner — while a few, including Johnson, escaped. Days later Urrea crushed Grant's remaining men at Agua Dulce Creek, sending the survivors into months of captivity in Matamoros.

Battle of Spokane Plains monument

Spokane County, WA

This monument marks the Battle of Spokane Plains, fought on September 5, 1858, when U.S. troops under Colonel George Wright defeated allied Coeur d'Alene, Palouse, and Spokane warriors. The clash was part of the wider conflict that opened the interior Pacific Northwest to settlement following disputes over land and passage. Wright's campaign, remembered for its harsh aftermath, effectively ended organized Native resistance in the region.

Battle of Taliwa

Ball Ground, GA

About 1755, near the confluence of Long-Swamp Creek and the Etowah River, the great Cherokee war-chief Oconostota led some 500 warriors to a decisive victory over a larger Creek force in the Battle of Taliwa. The defeat was so complete that the Creeks withdrew south of the Chattahoochee River, ceding to the Cherokee the region that would later become the heart of the Cherokee Nation.

Battle of the Alazan

San Antonio, TX

On June 20, 1813, the plains just west of San Antonio saw one clash in the violent struggle that convulsed Spanish Texas as insurgents rose against royal rule. Colonel Ygnacio Elizondo, who had already switched sides twice, camped carelessly near the Alazán and was overwhelmed at dawn by the republican Army of the North under Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara, who charged straight through the Spanish camp behind a solid green banner. Only the best-mounted royalists escaped the two-hour battle.

Battle of the Arroyo Hondo

Hondo, TX

In 1842 the Mexican Army launched three invasions to reclaim Texas after the revolution, and in September General Adrián Woll's forces seized San Antonio. As Texan volunteers rallied, fighting spread across South Texas — at Salado Creek on September 18 and again on September 21 at Hondo Creek (Arroyo Hondo) near this site. Hampered by dissension and unclear leadership, the Texans failed to rout Woll's retreating army, an outcome that helped prompt the ill-fated Somervell Expedition.

Battle of the Clouds

East Whiteland Township, PA

Just five days after the bruising defeat at Brandywine, George Washington tried to make another stand against the advancing British here on September 16, 1777. As the armies maneuvered into position, a violent rainstorm swept in and soaked the soldiers' ammunition, forcing Washington to withdraw before a major clash could unfold — giving the aborted engagement its evocative name, the Battle of the Clouds.

Battle of the Clouds

East Whiteland Township, PA · est. 2014

In September 1777, with the British marching on the rebel capital of Philadelphia, Washington's Continental Army fell back from its defeat at Brandywine to regroup along Swedesford Road near the White Horse Tavern. As the two armies maneuvered toward a decisive fight, a sudden violent downpour soaked the soldiers' gunpowder and made battle impossible. The outnumbered Americans used the reprieve to slip northwest, resupply, and fight another day.

Battle of the Freshwater Fork of the Brazos

Crosbyton, TX

In September 1871 Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie led the 4th U.S. Cavalry from Fort Griffin against Comanche who had refused to move to their reservation. Near the mouth of Blanco Canyon on October 11, Comanche warriors surprised the camp on the Freshwater Fork of the Brazos, stampeding dozens of horses and sparking a running pursuit of more than forty miles in which two Comanche and a soldier were killed and both Mackenzie and Lt. Robert Carter were wounded. The clash marked the first meeting of Mackenzie with Quanah Parker and the Quahadi Comanche—and the beginning of the end of Comanche dominance in the Panhandle, culminating in the Red River War of 1874.

Battle of the Knobs

Decatur, TX

On November 10, 1837, eighteen Republic of Texas soldiers under Lt. A. B. Benthuysen clashed near this site with roughly 150 Native American fighters. Ten of the Texans were killed—their names recorded on the marker—while Indian losses were estimated at fifty. The rugged geologic feature called the Knobs now stands as a natural memorial to the soldiers left on the field.

Battle of the Little Wichita

Archer City, TX

On the North Texas frontier in July 1870, Captain Curwen B. McLellan led 56 troopers of the 6th Cavalry out of Fort Richardson in response to a raid on a mail stage. Near the forks of the Little Wichita his small command ran into a Kiowa war party of some 250 fighters under Kicking Bird and was forced into a fighting retreat that cost the lives of two soldiers. The clash was one of the sharp Southern Plains engagements of the post-Civil War era, and an extraordinary thirteen Medals of Honor were awarded for the day's fighting.

Battle of the Neches

Van, TX

On July 15–16, 1839, some 500 troops of the Republic of Texas clashed with roughly 800 Cherokee and allied Delaware and Shawnee fighters in the main engagement of the Cherokee War. Remarkably, the republic's vice president and secretary of war took part in the fighting. The aged Cherokee leader Chief Bowles was killed carrying a sword once given to him by Sam Houston, and the defeat scattered the tribes from settled East Texas.

Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet Memorial

Wildwood Crest, NJ

On June 29, 1776 — just days before the Declaration of Independence — the American brigantine Nancy, running a precious cargo of gunpowder up the coast, was chased by British warships and ran aground at Turtle Gut Inlet near present-day Wildwood Crest. Patriot sailors and Continental crews fought a sharp engagement to unload the powder before the ship was lost, then blew up the Nancy to keep her from the enemy. It was one of the earliest naval actions of the Revolution off the New Jersey shore.

Battle of Whitehall

Seven Springs, NC

On December 15–16, 1862, Union troops under General J. G. Foster raided the village of Whitehall (now Seven Springs) during operations along the Neuse River. In the fighting they damaged the Confederate ironclad ram 'Neuse,' then under construction along the river. The clash was part of Foster's broader expedition against Confederate supply lines in eastern North Carolina.

Battle of Wilton

Town of Wilton, NY

This marker in the town of Wilton commemorates a military engagement remembered as the Battle of Wilton. Saratoga County lies in the strategically vital upper Hudson Valley — a corridor fought over repeatedly from the colonial wars through the American Revolution, when control of the route between Canada and Albany carried national stakes.

Battle of Wyoming

Wyoming, PA · est. 1952

On July 3, 1778, the Revolution reached the Susquehanna frontier in one of its bloodiest backcountry episodes. A small force of about 300 patriots under Colonel Zebulon Butler marched out to meet a much larger column of British, Loyalists, and allied Iroquois led by Major John Butler. The patriots were routed, many captives were killed, and terrified survivors fled to the refuge of Forty Fort.

Battle Pass Historic Marker

New York, NY

On August 27, 1776, the Battle of Long Island—the first major engagement after the Declaration of Independence—swept across the wooded hills and passes of what is now Brooklyn. Battle Pass, where old roads cut through the ridge separating Flatbush from Brooklyn and Gowanus, was a key point Continental troops tried to hold and barricade against advancing British and Hessian forces. Though the Americans were driven back, Washington's daring night withdrawal across the East River saved his army to fight another day.

Battle Rock

Shasta County, CA

In June 1855, the Battle of the Crags was fought below this rocky outcrop in far northern California, pitting Modoc people against incoming settlers. The conflict grew out of a familiar frontier grievance: miners had fouled the fishing waters around Lower Soda Springs that the Modoc depended on for food. The marker recalls how the Gold Rush transformation of California's rivers and mountains repeatedly collided with the survival of the Native nations who lived there.

Battlefield Landmark

Clayton County, GA

The deep gully south of this marker — the bed of a small stream running to the Flint River — was one of the few natural landmarks of the fighting here on August 31, 1864. Along and north of it, Union divisions of the 15th and 16th Corps formed a refused line bent back to the river. When Hardee's Confederate divisions attacked from south of the gully, the ravine became a fatal obstacle, breaking up their assault against the entrenched Federal infantry and artillery near Jonesboro.

Battlefield of Peachtree Creek

Atlanta, GA

When Lt. Gen. John B. Hood took command of the Army of Tennessee on July 18, 1864, he moved quickly to strike the Federal armies closing on Atlanta. His first blow fell on July 20 against Thomas's Army of the Cumberland as it crossed Peachtree Creek, but a delay in Confederate deployment let the Federals secure ground south of the stream. The battle spread west across fields bisected by Collier Road, from Clear Creek to Howell Mill Road.

Battleground Prairie

Seguin, TX

On this prairie in March 1839, General Edward Burleson and about 80 volunteers of the young Republic of Texas overtook and defeated a force led by Vicente Córdova, breaking up the so-called Córdova Rebellion—an anti-Texan uprising that had drawn together Mexican loyalists, Native fighters, and others. The clash drove the rebels from Texas and ended the episode. The state placed this marker during the 1936 centennial.

Battles of Penny’s and Luce’s Landing

Town of Riverhead, NY

During the War of 1812, the shores of Long Island's North Fork became a front line as British warships blockaded Long Island Sound and preyed on coastal shipping. This marker recalls two waterfront clashes in which local farmers, militia, and a small revenue cutter's crew stood against far larger Royal Navy vessels — saving one American sloop and putting up a days-long defense before another vessel was taken. The named British man-of-war Sylph places these skirmishes squarely in that era of raids and improvised coastal resistance.

Battles of Tilton

Whitfield County, GA

In 1864 the rail towns of northwest Georgia became a battleground during Sherman's drive on Atlanta. This spot saw a May delaying action as Confederates withdrew toward Resaca, and an October assault in which part of French's Division shelled a blockhouse held by some 300 men of the 17th Iowa Veteran Volunteer Infantry, forcing their surrender after a fight of several hours.

Baxter Pines Monument

Portland, ME

In the early 1920s, Maine Governor Percival Proctor Baxter gave this stand of pines to the City of Portland to be held forever as a public grove and bird sanctuary. Baxter, a lifelong conservationist, is best remembered for later donating the vast wilderness around Mount Katahdin that became Baxter State Park.

Baxter Springs Massacre

Cherokee County, KS

On October 6, 1863, Union General James G. Blunt and roughly a hundred men were ambushed near Baxter's Springs by William Quantrill's Confederate guerrillas, some disguised in Union blue. The deception let the raiders close in before the escort could react, and much of Blunt's party was cut down in the fighting that followed. The episode was one of the bloodiest guerrilla actions on the Kansas-Missouri border.

Baxter's Curve Train Robbery

Sanderson, TX

In the dark early hours of March 13, 1912, Ben Kilpatrick—a former member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch—and his partner Ole Hobek boarded a Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio train at Dryden and forced it on to Baxter's Curve, a sharp bend where they uncoupled the baggage cars to plunder them. Their scheme unraveled when Wells Fargo express manager David A. Trousdale killed one robber with an ice mallet and shot the other with the dead man's own rifle. The two outlaws were buried in Sanderson, and Trousdale was celebrated for his nerve.

Bay City Library

Bay City, TX

Organized in 1912 and first tucked into an insurance office, the Bay City Public Library owed its start to the Bay City Library Association, whose community fundraising bought land and completed a dedicated building by 1914 under first librarian Josephine McCullough. A new library rose in 1958, a Friends group formed in 1977, and in 1987 the library joined the Texas state library system.

Bay City Methodist Church

Bay City, TX

This Methodist congregation began in 1870 with circuit-riding ministers serving settlers along the Colorado River at Red Bluff. When the town of Bay City was surveyed in 1894, the church relocated, bought one of the first town lots, and by 1897 raised Bay City's first church building—a steepled frame structure that doubled as a Union church for other denominations. Successive sanctuaries followed, the fifth dedicated in 1958, as the congregation grew alongside the town.

Bay City Post Office

Bay City, TX

After an 1894 election moved the Matagorda county seat to Bay City, merchant D. P. Moore relocated his store to the new town and his nephew became its first postmaster. Moore later sold the site to the federal government, and this post office building opened in 1918. For more than seventy years it anchored civic life, serving as a meeting place, a World War II Selective Service board site, and a hurricane refuge before becoming the county museum in 1990.

Bay City U.S.O. Building

Bay City, TX

Built in 1941 on land loaned by the Pierce Estate, the Bay City U.S.O. was one of sixteen such centers raised that year across Texas, Arizona, and Oklahoma to serve both townspeople and soldiers training at nearby Camp Hulen. Dedicated in 1942 and run by the Y.M.C.A. under U.S.O. auspices, its programs drew more than 150,000 service personnel before operations ended in 1945 and the building passed to the American Legion. With its banded windows, cantilevered overhangs, and flat roof, the buff-brick, International-style hall is the last of five Gulf Coast wartime U.S.O. buildings still standing.

Bay Ridge / Morgan's Point

Morgan's Point, TX

Named for early landowner Colonel James Morgan, this breezy bluff on Galveston Bay became a summer refuge for well-to-do Houston families escaping the city's heat. In 1893 twelve of them formed the Bay Ridge Park Association, platting narrow beachfront lots assigned by ballot and building verandaed cottages in Eastlake and Queen Anne styles. Grander early-twentieth-century homes followed, including one modeled on the White House for Governor Ross Sterling.

Bay's Chapel Methodist Church

Richards, TX

In 1851 the Thomas Bay family, newly arrived from Tennessee, raised a log building on donated land that served their frontier community as both church and schoolhouse. As Montgomery County settled and grew, the congregation replaced that humble structure, dedicating the present building in 1899 on land given by another Bay. The chapel's story is the familiar arc of a pioneer family planting faith and learning in the East Texas woods.

Bayard Rustin (1912-1987)

West Chester, PA · est. 1995

Bayard Rustin was born in West Chester in 1912 and grew into one of the most brilliant strategists of the American civil rights movement. A lifelong pacifist schooled in nonviolence, he was the chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the massive demonstration where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. He later led the A. Philip Randolph Institute, linking the causes of civil rights and organized labor. Often pushed to the movement's margins because he was openly gay, Rustin worked tirelessly behind the scenes.

Bayard v. Singleton

New Bern, NC

In 1787, in a case decided nearby, North Carolina judges Samuel Ashe, Samuel Spencer, and John Williams struck down a state law they found contrary to the state constitution. The ruling in Bayard v. Singleton is one of the earliest American precedents for judicial review—the power of courts to void unconstitutional legislation. It came just as the U.S. Constitution was being drafted in Philadelphia.

Bayland Guards

Baytown, TX

In the spring of 1861 Dr. Ashbel Smith raised a company of volunteers from the Galveston Bay settlements, drilling them on his own plantation before they mustered into Confederate service as part of what became the Second Texas Infantry. Among their ranks were sons of Republic of Texas presidents Sam Houston and Anson Jones. The regiment fought at Shiloh, where half the company fell, and endured the forty-six-day siege of Vicksburg before its survivors were paroled and served out the war along the Texas coast.

Bayland Orphans Home

Baytown, TX

In the wreckage the Civil War left across Texas, Henry Gillette and a small group of citizens gathered in 1866 to care for the children of Confederate soldiers, and the Texas Legislature chartered their orphanage that September. On a bluff overlooking Tabbs Bay, a two-story brick house became home to a growing family of children—76 of them by 1870—sustained by donated land, stocks, and a state grant of tens of thousands of acres. When support shifted toward Houston, the home relocated in 1888 and, through many changes of name and mission, endures today as Harris County's Burnett Bayland Rehabilitation Center.

Baylor College of Dentistry

Dallas, TX

Two St. Louis dentists chartered State Dental College in Dallas in 1905, betting that the fast-growing commercial city needed a dental school despite local skepticism. After the Dallas County Dental Society joined its oversight, the school affiliated with Baylor University in 1918, earning national 'Class A' accreditation and accelerating its program during World War II to supply dentists for U.S. troops. Independent again in 1971, it later joined the Texas A&M University System and remains a nationally recognized center for oral-health education and research.

Baylor County

Seymour, TX

Baylor County was carved out on the Texas frontier in 1858 but not formally organized until 1879, once settlement had pushed westward. It honors Dr. Henry W. Baylor, a physician who served as a Ranger captain and fought in the Mexican War before dying young in 1854. Seymour became its county seat.

Baylor University

Waco, TX

Baylor was chartered on February 1, 1845, by the Congress of the Republic of Texas, named for Judge R.E.B. Baylor, who with the Rev. William Tryon and the Rev. James Huckins secured it under a Baptist resolution to build a university for the ages. It opened at Independence in Washington County, where early presidents guided it through the Civil War years, and General Sam Houston counted among its benefactors, sending his children there and helping build its first women's building. In 1886 the university moved to Waco, where it grew into the institution known today for treasures like the Armstrong Browning Library.

Baylor University for Boys

Independence, TX

Chartered on February 1, 1845 under the laws of the Republic of Texas, Baylor University opened a building for its male students on this Independence site in 1851. Named for Judge R.E.B. Baylor, who with the Rev. William M. Tryon secured the charter, the school elected Henry L. Graves its first president in 1846. In 1886 it consolidated with Waco University and moved west to Waco, where it endures as the oldest institution of higher learning in Texas.

Baylor University Medical Center

Dallas, TX

Facing a shortage of medical care for booming turn-of-the-century Dallas, Dr. Charles M. Rosser opened a training hospital in 1900, and by 1903 a challenge from pastor George W. Truett spurred Texas Baptists to charter a great teaching hospital that grew into Baylor. From its 250-bed facility of 1909 to the pioneering 1929 'Baylor Plan' — a prepaid hospital insurance scheme that seeded Blue Cross — the center became a landmark of American medicine.

Baylor University on Windmill Hill

Independence, TX

Chartered by the Republic of Texas in 1845, Baylor University soon spread from Academy Hill to a second campus here on Windmill Hill, where a nearby quarry yielded "superior building rock" for stone halls like Graves Hall and Tryon Hall. Under president Rufus Burleson the male department developed here through the 1850s and Civil War years, growing to at least eight buildings on a 40-acre campus. Facing declining enrollment, trustees merged with Waco University and abandoned the site by 1886; fire, neglect, and demolition erased the buildings, and the ground is now a commemorative park.